12. Easier Said Than Done

Your brain is a great human computer. It receives and stores knowledge, records emotions and feelings, and stores hurts and pain. The subconscious part of this great computer does not know right from wrong. It simply stores and informs the conscious part of the brain.

The conscious mind holds the knowledge of right and wrong. We have been given the free will to act upon a thought presented from the subconscious mind.

The brain is the controlling center of all our actions. It sends out messages, and we react. This, of course, is a simplified version of the brain’s functions; it is a highly complex part of the body and we use only a small percentage of its capabilities.

We have been told all our lives, “This or that is easiersaid than done.” That’s not always true, particularly when it comes to making mistakes. Mistakes are easier, “said than done”. It takes an effort to make a mistake. You can talk easily, but it takes an effort to act out those thoughts.

Do not confuse “mistakes” with chances and risks. Chances and risks are necessary to grow and expand – to experience life. We will know the results of a mistake because we have made them before or seen someone else make them.

Sometimes we won’t listen to our conscience, and make the same mistakes over and over again. The mistake becomes a habit, which is hard to break. Habitual criminals, for example, make the same mistakes over and over again.

We set out to prove that the same thing will not happen to us. Wrong! Mistakes happen most of the time because we allow them to. Not so with chances. We cannot know the results of chances, so we take the risk and learn from them if they don’t work out as planned.

We seldom plan a mistake. WE sometimes make mistakes, consciously or subconsciously, we get attention or even to punish ourselves or someone we think we love. We make mistakes by being stubborn, by not listening and wanting to do the things “our way” without considering the options. Mistakes are often made impulsively, by not thinking things through.

When I plan a project, I will take a few chances and risks. Say we are going on a picnic. We take a chance that it won’t rain and head for the outdoors. It’s a risk, but that’s okay. We cannot plan the outcome; we aren’t sure that it won’t rain. It doesn’t rain; and the picnic is a success. It was worth the risk. We had fun, and no one got hurt.

I may take a chance and sing a new song. I don’t know the outcome. If the song leads to a standing ovation, it was worth the risk. If I get booed off the stage, I’ll learn not to sing that song again.

If I do sing it a second time, that’s a mistake. I get booed off the stage again. That mistake should teach me a lesson. If I try it a third time and get booed, I did not learn from my mistake. I’ll just keep making the same mistake again, and soon it doesn’t matter that I get booed. I’ll just keep doing it “my way;” after all, “I have to be ‘me’.”

What does the audience know, anyway? I will become a person known for making mistakes, not a person who will take a chance and use it as a stepping stone to my dreams.

When you constantly make the same mistake again and again, you apparently have to fix your “computer breakdown.” Feed in some new information; change your attitude disks.

It is a saying in the computer world, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Whatever you put into your brain will come out the same way. Computers cannot analyze, purify and change. They can only put out what you feed in.

You can “change your disks.” Learn to take chances, but do not make the same mistakes over and over. Learn to feed only positive thoughts into your computer “brain.” It will feed back positive thoughts to you.

When you feed impure thoughts to your brain, ask God to purify them and give you a clean heart, so you can serve Him. God does not make mistakes; He takes chances. He took a chance on you and me by giving us a free will. He gave us the choice: to decide for ourselves whether we would choose Him. If you think He doesn’t love us by giving us that chance, you’re mistaken.

God loves you. He needs you to be His ambassadors of love, to tell the children that He loves them. Don’t disappoint Him; He is taking a chance on you. You are not a mistake. You are loved. You are somebody, and that’s easier said than to believe.